Freedom
by SimplexityJane
Summary: His illusion shatters. Canon compliant up to 2.7, rated M for language and violent themes. Also Peter Hale, who will always scare me. Lydia/Jackson.


**Sequel to Trapped and The Trade, set before Red Strings. Warning, Peter Hale and death threats. I don't own and if it happens this way in the series it's just because I'm a little psychic.**

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His illusion shatters, and he lies. Tells her it's her immunity he's interested in, not her magic. That isn't his secret to tell, after all. Instead he lets the hold he has on her magic tighten, forces her mind away.

He knows this act, he thinks. Being something that isn't him. He's the wolf, after all, cunning child of Fenrir that he is. Her magic and her immunity tie them together somehow, even as she screams and her power rebels. He can't perform the simplest spells, can't shift, but he can spy. He can take her eyes as his own, walk in her shoes. He avoids the Stilinski boy because he knows her too well- there had been a spark of magic in his blood; Peter wonders if his nephew has wondered about that. The sharp scent only at the edge of his consciousness, barely discernible from his car or his home, the smell of someone with magic in their blood.

Talking to Danny is easiest- poor thing probably thinks Lydia's going through a horrible trauma. He's just too _nice_, even if his family is of the moon as well. Jackson's been missing since the weekend, the chemistry teacher looks smug.

"You know, Lydia," he says to her in his reflection. "Your lover would be healed if Harris was killed and exposed. If you stopped fighting me we could do that together."

He stole her mother's grimoire and found a spell to move a spirit. With a little modification (and it has to be performed at the full moon, a necessary risk), he can turn the dummy he made of earth and water into a spirit of air and fire. Those things are important to witches. Balance and all that.

"I hate you," she says when he loosens control. "Go fuck yourself and your ideas. You go anywhere near Jackson and I'll kill you."

"Language," he tuts. "I could kill you, remember? I could easily perform the spell on the full moon while stabbing you in the stomach. I don't have to keep you alive, I'm choosing to because you can give me my life back."

She retreats, seemingly chastened. He keeps a tight lid on her nonetheless. It's only when she prods gently, like she's expecting a rebuke, that he allows her any semblance of control. Her anger is delicious. She hates him so much- all the hate she should be feeling toward the people keeping her in the dark, the way Stiles still lies to her even though she knows the truth, even though he should see Peter looking out of her eyes. How someone who can see as much as he could chooses to believe the best of a possessed woman is beyond him, but his rage is all that he knows. He remembers nothing of his life as a human, happier for it.

"What is it, my dear?" he asks. He pulls out a compact and as if by habit her lips purse. Perhaps he shouldn't allow her as much control as he does.

"Can you? I mean, do you know how to expose Harris? I know your big bad plan ends with Derek dead and Jackson a part of your pack anyway, but-" And here her eyes actually fall away, a surprising act when he can see out of them as well. "Jackson doesn't like owing people, but he pays his debts."

"I can expose him with some of your magic. I can make it so that he confesses on tape to the murders before killing himself. A hanging, I think, or perhaps a gun. The truth would come out and your lover would be freed. I'd even let you keep him afterward." Pure hatred, yes, but she knows what she wants, this goddess blessed child.

"Do it."

It's almost as easy as he thought it would be. For a man holding in his hands the key to several mysteries Adrian Harris is alone too often. He isn't married, he has no children (save the ones he sends on to families on the chance that he might one day use them), he lives alone. And Peter is used to stalking.

"Hello, Adrian," he says, turning on the light. For once Lydia isn't fighting him, marvelous. It's all the power he wanted without the messy parts. Her magic sings along his veins, surely showing itself in glowing eyes and skin. Adrian Harris is a quick man, beginning to summon his slave even as they raise their hand. He slams against the wall, tongue disappearing and panic zinging. It's sharp in the air, his fear. "Don't do that."

"You touched my consort," Lydia says, and it's her right now, speaking in unison with him. "I'm going to make you pay. _Siarad wirioneddo_l!" It's a demand for the truth, a compelling force that takes his breath with it. The girl glows with it.

He remembers to put on the tape while Harris begins to talk.

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_"I- I caused a car crash. Jackson Whittemore's biological parents died in that crash. It was on purpose and it was evil. I wanted them dead. *_sobbing_* I killed a woman, smothered her, I wore a glove. She had just given birth. Her husband had cheated me, threatened to go to the police because he knew what I had done to the Browns. I killed him too. I killed a mechanic whose name I don't know, I killed a man on the Hale property, I killed Isaac Lahey's father because he was abusive and damaging a student. God. I tried to kill five of my students while they were in detention. I framed an innocent man and d-drugged him so he would black out and think he'd done it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."_

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"Hello, Jackson," the sheriff said. Jackson tried to look at him without analyzing the way his heart skipped in his chest, how he was obviously nervous about telling Jackson whatever it was he needed to tell him. All he knew was Mom was sitting beside him and was crying, Dad was shaking violently, and they had brought him here after he half shifted into a werewolf when he woke up in the forest and staggered into the house, every memory of the past month restored. His eyes were still red, strangely, even though he could heal now (could heal before, killed before, what happened?). "I know you're probably wondering why I asked you here."

"I was missing for four days, sir, I'd call me here too." He smiled slightly, trying for self deprecating and hitting somewhere around awkward.

"Actually, that's not why. It's more about why you and my son thought you were a murderer. I'm guessing that's why you disappeared."

Jackson nearly panicked, eyes widening as he breathed erratically.

"Please," he said, eyes darting at his parents. Mom was sobbing now, but there was no fear in her scent. She seemed relieved.

"You were drugged by Adrian Harris," the sheriff said bluntly. "He confessed to everything. Including-" and now he glanced downward, biting his lip, and Jackson knew. He was shaking too, his head shaking no over and over. "The murder of Catherine and Jack Brown. He then hung himself." The sheriff looked at him at that, must have seen what was on his face- grim satisfaction, tears of finally _knowing_. "You'll need to give a statement, of course. Mr. Harris did awful things. He killed a woman who had just given birth very recently as well as several others." Her face flashed across Jackson's mind as he sobbed, one short breath. He couldn't harm the innocent or the old and weak. Not when he was a kanima, not before he was freed.

Harris hadn't killed himself, he realized. It was like it had been designed to free him._ Thank you_, he sent out to whoever had done that. He'd said it out loud, he realized.

"Thank you for telling me," he said. "Um, can I-"

"Of course," the sheriff said, standing, and so did his parents. He held their cuffs.

"Stay, please," he said. It was still hard to look at them and know they'd had to choose him, that there was no blood connection between them. Dad sat down and Mom actually hugged him, always the most emotional one of them. "I wanted to tell you," he continued when the sheriff was gone. His throat caught, remembering being led to his house and knowing that Harris would set him on his parents if he tried to disobey. "He- he said he'd kill you. I couldn't-"

"It's okay," Mom said into his shoulder. Dad was holding his arm, not talking. "It's all okay, Jackson." Her hand stroked through his hair like when he'd been little and hadn't known, and he leaned in gratefully.

"I'm sorry," he gasped against the tears. "I'm so sorry."


End file.
